The Word of the Year says quite a bit about public debates. In the last two years, the Society for the German language has chosen the words “Fanmeile” (”fan mile,” referring to the public viewing and celebrating spaces during the Soccer World Cup in Germany in 2006) and “Bundeskanzlerin” (the female version of the word “chancellor”) as word of the year. And now “Klimakatastrophe” (climate catastrophe) was selected as the Word of the Year...

No, the headline refers to a painting by French artist Gustave Courbet. The NY Times used a picture of Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy in front of this painting as an illustration of its article “Despite Report, France and Germany Keep Pressure on Iran.” Apparently the German and French leaders said they had not changed their minds despite the findings of the American intelligence estimate released Monday, which some believed would have eroded support for tougher new sanctions. BAGnewsNotes...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called for the US government to commit more money and effort to “soft power” tools, including communications, because the military alone cannot defend America’s interests around the world. The NY Times quotes Gates as saying: “We are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals,” he said. “It is just plain embarrassing...

Reuters: Western Europe, which is the fourth most popular travel destination for Americans, has increased its share of Thanksgiving bookings this year by 9.5 percent, according to Travelocity data. Eastern Europe, where the dollar goes a bit farther than in cities like Paris and London, saw a 24.6 percent surge in its share of bookings, Travelocity said. U.S. airlines are seeing similar trends in international travel for the 12-day Thanksgiving holiday rush. Meanwhile travel from Europe to the United...

President Sarkozy gets a dozen standing ovations from Congress. And Chancellor Merkel gets to stay at Bush’s ranch in Crawford, which is supposed to be some high honor bestowed upon only President Bush’s very best allies. Will this charm offensive result in better transatlantic relations? I seriously doubt that Merkel feels all warm and fuzzy now, although that seems to have been the purpose of the invite to Crawford. Likewise, I doubt whether ex-Chancellor Schroeder was saddened...

While 9/11 has shaped US foreign policy and national identity significantly, German identity and foreign policy has been shaped even more by 9.11. — that’s how we write “November 9th.” This is what happened on November 9th in Germany: 1848: Germany’s first revolutionary dreams were killed. 1918: Proclamation of the Weimar Republic. 1923: Hitler first attempted to take over the government. 1938: The so-called Reichskristallnacht took the brutal persecution of Jews to...

The Netherlands have tried to apply an ‘ink blot’ strategy in the Uruzgan province of Afghanistan, i.e. they focused on weaning the local population from supporting the Taliban, de-escalation and gradual expansion of a zone of security within which reconstruction can take place. One of the reasons the Netherlands seem to be gradually abandoning the strategy is that the Dutch can’t draw up a strategy in isolation. “The Netherlands can’t drive a wedge between the...

James Traub had a very interesting article about Barack Obama’s foreign policy credentials in the New York Times on Sunday. While the media and many Americans — according to polls — question his experience, the experts apparently prefer Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton: There are maybe 200 people on the Democratic side who think about foreign policy for a living,” as one such figure, himself unaffiliated with a campaign, estimates. “The vast majority have thrown...

Today N. Gregory Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard, writes in the New York Times about “true but misleading statements about health care that politicians and pundits love to use to frighten the public.” Two of those statements are often used by Europeans to criticize the United States. One is about the infant mortality rate and the other about the 47 million Americans without health insurance. Mankiew on the latter statement: The 47 million also includes many who could...

There is a certain obsession with the United States in European debates, but there also seems to be a certain obsession with France in the US. Rudy Giuliani for instance recently campaigned with: If we are not careful and you don’t elect me, this country will be to the left of France. Ezra Klein takes issue with that: We could elect Dennis Kucinich and 10 more Democratic senators and we wouldn’t get anywhere near France. Well, perhaps France is to the right of the United States? Emmanuel...

“Rumors of a return to trans-Atlantic harmony are premature for the moment,” writes Niall Stanage in The New York Observer. He criticizes the wishful thinking by some arrogant commentators. Instead of the term “arrogance,” Stanage uses the euphemism “a robust sense of self-importance,” which instantly became one of my favorite phrases: The ascensions of Ms. Merkel and, particularly, Mr. Sarkozy have been heralded by American conservatives, who see their victories...

After her election as chancellor of Germany in November 2005, Angela Merkel received a lot of positive press coverage in the US. Her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder was blamed for the bitter transatlantic disagreements over the Iraq war. Merkel was supposed to be a pro-American and a strong reformer, who heals German-American relations and makes Germany more supportive of US policies around the world. I expected some honeymoon for Chancellor Merkel, but was very surprised how long it lasted and how...

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is expected to call for more European contributions to Afghanistan at the NATO Defense Ministers meeting in the Netherlands today and tomorrow. His message to Europeans is according to an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that they should “fulfill the commitments that their leaders made in Riga [at the NATO summit in November 2006].” Not surprisingly, the NY Sun gets already the first sentence of its article on the NATO Defense Ministers...